


I'll Breathe You In, If You Hold Me Close

by PrefectMoony



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, alternate universe - upper east side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrefectMoony/pseuds/PrefectMoony
Summary: There’s stardust spilling in Remus’s hair, and Sirius’s  tugging on the ends of his own so harshly that it makes him wince and there’s a rabid, squirming sensation that’s slinking through Sirius’s very  bones,  against his very skin— a sensation that makes him want to reach over the three feet separating them and through the five months of shared history that built them together. Five months of caressing hands and devouring lips and feeling at peace for the first time in their miserable lives. Makes him want to knot their limbs together and kiss him like the world was suspended just for the pair of them again, to taste the butterscotch sweetness and half formed secrets and nicotine stained lips Sirius has always handled with the upmost reverence.But he Can't.ORIn which Remus and Sirius fall into one another and keep on falling.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 34
Kudos: 152





	I'll Breathe You In, If You Hold Me Close

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extremely late birthday FIC I wrote for one of the most talented fucking babes to ever write Wolfstar! And who gives me my pretty boy Remus fix!!! [VICTORIA](http://TheProngsletThatLived.tumblr.com) you are such a kind fucking soul and so beyond lovely, and I’m so sorry if this is shit. I’ve been stuck on what to write you for weeks, but then I saw the other day that you vibe with Gallavich, so this is crack where it’s kinda that but also the Blacks are kinda the Bass family from Gossip Girl, and I am like extremely nervous that this is pure shit, but I hope it’s like tolerable enough for you to somewhat enjoy because you deserve so much loveliness!! And again I’m sorry if it sucks XS
> 
> Thank you to the babe [Kat](http://Kattlupin.tumblr.com) who stayed up at midnight with me to brainstorm ideas flkjasoigjqowifjkljgdsfj You’re an angel babey!!!!
> 
> *deep breath* Final apologies ya’ll

It’s a typical Tuesday afternoon, which means that Sirius is smoking a messily wrapped joint that James had just handed over and they’re playing a round of pool in the lounge of the Grimmauld, one of the numerous hotels owned by the Blacks. Fabian Prewett is about to break right when Sirius’s kid cousin clammers inside, blotchy faced and crying. She’s always been so God damn emotional.

“What’s going on kid?”

“It’s. It’s. Remus Lupin.”

Sirius just barely lets her finish the story before he’s off after the punk.

.-

So the thing is that Sirius knows of Remus Lupin before ever actually speaking to him past placid pleasantries exchanged in the halls or a party. Everyone knows everyone in the Upper East Side, knows all their dirty little secrets and familial histories and underhanded dealings— which are usually one in the same. They all know each others standing in this tentative hierarchy that paints the landscape of this Versace veneered bubble filled up with pasted smiles and empty eyes. The Lupins are the sort of folks that the Blacks make it a point to scoff at during soirees and the likes. The patriarch, Lyall, is as new money as they come, still stenches from the centuries of mediocrity that is his cornerstone. His wife turned scorned lover was a gorgeous young thing from an Eastern European town in the Tallin outskirts who made her fortunes from smiling pretty on magazine covers and collecting a pile of ex husbands that it would turn any head from the sheer madness. They are the e absolute antithesis of the Black family tree, which in turn has branches stemming so far back that the history books can’t even encompass their grandness. They’ve been the crowning jewel of every commendable antiquity for ten centuries on the low end, and have made their footprints of granger for all to marvel at, and Sirius is the incandescent scion from all their efforts. He knows who he is, knows what he represents. Knows that he’s literally been bread to be this beautiful and brilliant and bright. So it makes no sense why his gaze has always been magnetized to the sight of the Lupin kid.

He’s big caramel curls, and even bigger green eyes, and he spends most of his time at school ambling about with that strawberry blonde charity case that James is always sniffing around. He looks like a CW heartthrob, pretty and unassuming and shy. Sirius doesn’t like him, has punched the lights out anyone— mainly Pettigrew— who would snidely ask why he’s always got one eye on him if he supposedly does not, but they don’t know shit. He’s just interesting, peculiar, different.

In a grayscale world Lupin seems to glow with vibrancy that shouldn’t be allowed. He smiles with an ingenuous air, and helps the younger years get around and studiously sticks to his mixers at parties even while most folks are cutting coke with their black cards and sniffing it off the sweaty stomach of a easy going girl from Princeton.

But none of that is actually interesting, actually matters. So what if sometimes while gazing at his profile, Sirius thinks confidently that Lupin would probably taste as sweet as his very disposition. And so what if he occasionally wonders just how it would sound if he got Lupin’s quiet, raspy little voice to whimper out loud while Sirius was fucking into him? None of that matters, it’s not like he gives a fuck about the prick.

His intrigue towards Lupin means nothing in the world they inhabit.

.-

He finds him on the Met steps, book in hand while the strawberry blonde— Evans— is chatting amiably about some trite that Sirius doesn’t care enough to understand, Sirius’s flocked by James and Pettigrew and has got a leer on his face as he swaggers forwards. 

“Lupy Lupin.”

His pretty eyes flicker upwards for a second before just sliding off of him and back to the copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles in his lap. “What do you want Black.”

“For you to tell me why my baby cousin told me that you’re toying around with her feelings Lupin,” he snarls back, he’s top dog of this town and its ocean of blue bloods, he’s not gonna let him forget it.

“Oh come off it,” Evans— glowering straight at him as if she isn’t a scholarship kid— rebukes. “Does Dora really need her brain dead, bastard of a cousin to fight her battles.”

Sirius bares his teeth at her, but it’s belied by James interjecting hurriedly to comment on how her hair looks especially shiny today. She flips him off and goes back to eating her yogurt, nose wrinkled like they’re a pack of street rats infesting her picnic. 

“I did nothing to Tonks Black, just told her kindly that she isn’t my type.” Lupin says breezily, standing up fully now and gesturing for Evans to follow suit.

Sirius steps forwards, properly irritated now. “You think your runt ass has any right to say that she isn’t good enough for you, the kid of a bimbo and drunkard.” Lupin’s pretty eyes flash at that, but he doesn’t betray his emotions, face staying unaffected, and tone as smooth and detached as ever.

“I rather prefer it if the person i’m fucking has a dick, sorry to break the news. But tell Tonks I’m flattered, and i’m still willing to be a friend and help tutor her for the calculus exam we’ve got coming up.”

With that, in an air of nonchalance, he cuts right past them, a preening Evans at his heels and three confused looking boys in his wake.

And oh. He is something interesting indeed.

.-

Sirius begins to watch him a bit more intently now, for a lot longer but more precise than before.

It’s not unusual for people in their circle to come out, it’s honestly common place. But it still can cause a stir in the more conservative families, the Blacks and Malfoys and Carros, the ones who depend on their families to continue their reign for decades to come. Honestly it isn’t a huge surprise that a nouveau riche bastard like Lupin is seemingly out and proud about the whole affair. And Sirius can’t help how much that boggles his mind.

Nothing really changes with Remus’s behavior— he still looks and acts like a Disney prince come to life— a position that seems to have been fitted for him especially. Still wears his prefect badge with pride, and still laughs buoyantly with Evans and Meadows and Fenwick , and still only ever regards Sirius with a snarl. But there are a couple new developments that make Sirius’s senses sharpen, mainly the fact that he’s an ever so attentive TA to the new English professor for the year— A sandy blonde thirty something who wears tweed and philosophizes about victorian literature so passionately that it gives Sirius a rash.

Sirius’s instincts have never been wrong, so he pays the slimy git— Severus Snape— a crisp hundred dollar bill to get him some proof that something not up to sniff is going on there. Snivellus probably hates Sirius more than even Remus does, but the greasy bastard is as poor and pathetic and hideous as they come, so of course he listens, coming back a week later with an array of photos filling a spare phone Sirius had bought for this express purpose.

“THere’s another hundred in there for you if you keep your trap shut about this Snivellus my boy.” Sirius crows, but refrains from clapping him on the shoulder— too afraid of the grease residue that’ll surely stick.

Snape agrees to as much with a snarl, pocketing the money and pivoting around in a hurry.

“Oy, there’s a spare fifty in there if you ever wanted to take up some personal hygiene Snivellus.” He calls after him in the midst of a cackle.

.-

“What did you do?” James asks Sirius the next morning as they take their seats for the impending lecture, eyes narrowed into slits.

Sirius waves him off, gaze glittering once he spots Lupin— looking good enough to eat in his pressed uniform and a small grin on his face while he speaks with Professor Dearborn. “Oh, don’t you worry your airy little head Jamsey.”

“Can’t you ever use your powers for good,” James sighs, long suffering. 

Sirius doesn’t bother to answer, to busy leering at Lupin. “Looking good Remus darling!” He shouts from the back, making it so the other boy casts him with a look that could skewer— Sirius loves getting to see the heat beneath that cool exterior.

“Enough class,” Dearborn nearly yells through the chattering teens, signaling for them to shut their traps as he goes to write the cast of Age of Innocence onto the bored.

“What, you don’t agree Professor?” Sirius asks, faux owlish and fully smug as he tips his chair back. “Lupin fills out those pants of his real well if you ask me.”

Sirius never took his eyes off of Remus the entire time he was speaking, so he sees it right when the boys cheeks redden prettily, mouth flattening to a line so sharp that Sirius is afraid he’ll get cut on the edges.

“Detention Black.”

“No thank you Professor, I’ve got things to do, people to see this afternoon. I’m sure you understand, besides I don’t want to keep you from your obligations to your ever so dedicated TAs.”

Uncomfortable titters begin to spill out their peers, his ex fling Marlene McKinnon all out cackling towards the front.

“Mr Black this is my classroom, and I expect you to show me some modicum of respect while you’re in it.”

Sirius parts his lips, ready to wage another poorly obscured insult his way, but is abruptly stopped by Lupin swiftly clamoring out his desk, glare never leaving Sirius’s person.

“Professor I’d be more than happy to usher him to the Head Mistress’s office.”

There’s a glance leveled between them that most likely no one else recognizes for what it is, but Sirius suddenly feels emboldened once he witnesses it. “Very well Mr Lupin, please make it back as soon as possible.”

Sirius reckons he should’ve put up more of a fight, but he wasn’t lying, Lupin really does fill out those pants incredibly, and what? He’s just suppose to toss out that invitation for the front row seat.

They turn down the hall when Lupin spins around, pressing Sirius against the wall depicting plaques of previous graduates, which is all types of hilarious considering that Sirius has got three inches and twenty pounds on him. “What do you know?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about gorgeous.”

“I told you, I’m gay! I’m not attracted to your cousin in that way! So leave me the fuck alone!”

“Listen Lupin, even if I was doing something— which I’m not— it definitely has nothing to do with my kid cousin.”

There’s a dent that appears between Remus’s brows, and Sirius has a weird sensation that tingles in his hands, like he’d really like to smooth it away. “What are you playing at.”

Sirius smirks, dips down to whisper this edge of lecherous against Lupin’s ear, taking in the scent of sandalwood and sunlight and parchment that dances on his skin. “Maybe I’m playing at the fact that I think you have a pretty mouth and would like to see it wrapped around—“

“Fuck off,” Remus pushes him away, furious and flushed and so fucking gorgeous.

“Yes that was my intention.”

“Leave me alone you prick.”

“Whatever you want beautiful.”

.-

While other fathers and sons went out to ball games and art exhibits or some other superfluous nonsense like that, Sirius spent his adolescence going with Orion to business meetings held in the backroom of swanky clubs where women served them half dressed and the drinks were bottomless. This is the realm where Sirius learned three very important lessons in his life. First, a Black always gets what he wants. Second, money can quite literally buy anything just as long as their are enough zeroes tailing the end. And third, everything’s a poker game, a measured push and pull of raising and folding and figuring out if the prick in front of you is bluffing or not. 

So like he was taught, Sirius folds for the time being, waits the week and a half it takes for Lupin to get sick of the thinly veiled threats volleyed Dearborn’s way and storm up to Sirius’s penthouse flat, practically electric with pure irritation.

“Didn’t think you’d come and visit gorgeous,” Sirius greets, tells his live in maid to take the afternoon off as he pads off to the kitchen to pour them a couple drinks of a decade old Prosecco. 

“Lily talked to Snape, and he told me about the photos,” Remus charges on, tactless and heated. Sirius only shakes his head, disappointed that he’s not playing the chess game they’ve got going on with more precision. 

“Remind me to get some one to break that beak Snivellus calls a nose, yeah?”

Remus— and yeah he isn’t sure just when exactly he’s started calling him that within the confines of his own mind— Only grips hard on the counter, caustic glower set in his delicate features. “Give me the phone Black.”

“Now that would be tempering with evidence gorgeous,” Sirius pops a grape into his mouth, saunters his way closer to Remus— close enough so that Remus has to tip his head ever so slightly back to continue boring his eyes into Sirius’s own. “Now tell me, how long you think darling Dearborn would stay locked up? I mean I get the prick is fit for being middle aged and all, but still, you’re 17, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be 18 in March,” Remus says through clenched teeth.

“Now that doesn’t sound like a defense that would hold up in the courts love.”

“Like you give a fuck!” Remus snaps, his voice going sudden and harsh like the lashing of a whip. “You’re just mad that I hurt your cousin’s feelings, everyone knows that you Blacks are ruthless, like a mob, hurt one of you and the rest of you find it apt to destroy the fucker.”

Sirius can’t help but toss back his head in a loud sort of laughter. “Didn’t I tell you that this has nothing to do with Dora.”

Remus’s thin lips twist up menacingly, and his eyes are bright with a passion Sirius can’t discern, and he’s practically seething now. “What do you want from me!”

Sirius makes an impossible step closer, feels the way the air between them has suddenly gone equal parts taught and charged, and really hopes to God he’s not misconstruing this. “Why did you come here Remus?”

“To get the pictures, Dearborn doesn’t deserve to have his entire career uprooted just because you’re having a hissy fit.”

Sirius tries to suppress the roll to his eyes and the various thoughts he has towards that slime ball, keeps himself focussed at the conversation at hand— at the fact that the most beautiful creature Sirius has ever seen is standing here, in his kitchen, waiting for him to make the first move. But he won’t make it that easy on him.

“For the love of God gorgeous, don’t waste either of our time with the bullshit. We both know you could’ve gotten Evans to get James to snatch it from me.” Remus doesn’t admit it, but he doesn’t deny either, so that’s as much Sirius thinks he’s gonna get. “You wanted to come here, to my home, and for what?” He quirks a brow, watches the way Remus’s open face pulls a thousand directions before settling on something like indignant.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Don’t let the door smack your ass on the way out,” Sirius straightens in a flash, pivots around to climb upstairs, is only stopped when Remus knots his hand into the material of his shirt, forcing Sirius to turn back.

“Just give it to me. Do the right thing.”

“Humph, and what do I get out of that Lupin?” Sirius asks with words cut by steel, feels the air punch out his lungs when Remus practically tackles against him, and their a mess of lips and spit and teeth and holy fuck is it something miraculous. Sirius palms up and down Remus’s lightly muscled back, landing with a firm grip on Remus’s aforementioned, beautiful ass, lifting him up before dashing towards the leather sectional and dropping into it.

“I. Knew. You wanted. me.” Sirius pants out, words punctuated by wet kisses peppering the column of Remus’s neck and line of his jaw and against his lips that taste like sugarplum sweetness. And it’s like he wants to actually devour him whole, feels the especially painful tension in his pants when Remus arches up wantonly, hands gripping at Sirius’s hair this side of painful. 

“Will you just shut up and take off your shirt already.”

Never one to disappoint, Sirius listens immediately, and is as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning when he gets to tare off Remus’s own clothes, nuzzles against the pale hair of his happy trail almost immediately and then moves down to mouth at his dick that’s still covered by his boxer briefs.

“Oh God.”

Sirius grins in a crass sort of way, pokes his tongue out to lap against the cotton clad cock, absolutely preens at the way Remus has got his pale head thrown back, with his forearm slung against his forehead and eyes squeezed shut. 

“You’re impossible. You’re not real.”

“And you’re beautiful.”

Sirius is slow and attentive— admittedly more than a bit teasing— as he slinks off Remus’s underwear, takes in the mental picture of this absolute angel lying flat and naked on his sofa with nothing but time ahead of them and a whole penthouse to themselves.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Remus asks in an almost whine, making it so the laughter that pours out of Sirius is booming, and only another moment passes before he’s licking up the underside of Remus’s dick, sucking hard at the tip before taking him down fully. 

“Oh, God,” Remus cries out, hips thrashing forwards, and only settling when Sirius flattens his arm against his slender waste as he begins to bob up and down, taking him in completely and then abruptly detaching himself, and over and over again, until Remus is left a corpse, practically moaning that he’s about to come, and Sirius clamps a hand around him, tugging fast and hard while he kisses Remus through the aftershocks.

And holy Christ above does this feel like some sorta drug.

.-

Sirius disposes of the phone, calls Avery to demolish Snivellus’s nose, and keeps fucking Remus in that order.

It becomes his new favorite pastime, and it’s not like it’s anything serious, anything to be worried over. He still fucks into anything pretty that blinks his direction, and Remus is still seeing the professor on the sly, and they still don’t even glance each other’s way during school hours. 

But the fucking? The fucking never stops.

“You like him! I knew it!” James says one night when he walks in to find Remus perched prettily on Sirius’s lap, gliding up and down his dick like a fucking star. There’s a lot of shouts and covering of eyes and mumbled apologies before Remus dashes out, citing some bull shit excuse that he has to go meet Lily anyhow.

Sirius promptly cuffs James on the back of the head once he says as much, retorting shortly that “I liked how he was riding my dick before you clambered in like a total fucking bastard.”

James’s cheeks darken, and he straightens his specs with a bashful smile, “Sorry about that one man, you looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

Sirius bares his teeth at him and lodges a water bottle at his head.

“Testy, testy.”

“you’re a prick.”

“So are you guys like going out then? Do you think he’ll put in a good word for me with Lily?”

“We’re not in some sitcom from the 80s fucker, so no, we’re not dating. We’re just screwing for the hell of it, and Evans wouldn’t date you if you were the last man on the planet.”

James tackles him right then, effectively killing the slight boner Remus had left behind.

.-

It’s the week before Christmas break. Sirius is going abroad to Turkey with the Potters until term starts up again, an inside joke between Monty and Effie that they never bothered to explain to James or Sirius but one that never fails to bring a gleam to their eyes anyhow. Sirius texted Remus to meet him back at his place for a goodbye fuck, and now an hour and a half later, Sirius appreciates just how genius he truly is as he rolls off of a still panting Remus— disheveled looking with his hair spilled over his forehead and chest heaving with heavy breaths. Sirius smirks proudly to himself. He did that, Remus let him do that to him, eagerly even.

“Fuck,” Remus breathes out, as articulate as ever as he slowly sits up, wincing while trying to pat down his wild mess of curls.

“Had to say my proper goodbyes gorgeous, I’ll be gone for a while and you’ll be left with the arse who needs a few dosages of Viagra to pound you half as good.”

Remus rolls his eyes exasperatedly, never a fan when Sirius pokes fun at the professor, but he doesn’t really care. Sirius grabs for his Jewel and takes a deep inhale, knows that he must honest to God like Remus beyond just a good lay when he snatches it out of his hand and takes a puff for himself.

“If you wanna suck on something that bad, I bet I can get it back up if you just give me a few?”

“You’re a prick.”

“Don’t act as if that isn’t my crowning characteristic gorgeous.”

Remus snorts, an increasingly more common occurrence as the weeks have gone by, and one that Sirius loves so much that he can feel the mirth curling in his toes. “Have fun in Turkey Black,” he says, stretching up fully now while collecting his clothes that were thrown all over the room with feverish gusto.

“You disappointed you’re stuck in the states for the next week?” Sirius asks, helpfully tossing him his soft henley before slipping on his robe.

“Hah, it’s better that I’ll be close by. Mom’s renovating the house for the fifth time this year, and she needs me to translate with those asshole realtors.”

Sirius quirks a brow, immediately and irrationally intrigued. Remus doesn’t talk much about his mother. He knows that is dad’s a prick who’s off fucking half of Europe and doesn’t intend on ever coming back, but Remus’s mom is someone he keeps close to his chest, talks about her with the same hard face he has on when he’s defending Lily from his ribbing. Like she’s someone vital and not to be messed with.

Sirius knows that they’re nothing real, nothing substantial, but that doesn’t stop this peculiar hunger he has to know Remus, to really know him. To figure out the facets that make him who he is— a whip smart, dry as all get out, contrary bastard who’s the only person who’s ever made Sirius feel something vivid and enthralling and splendid to it’s core. 

But no, that’s not real, that’s just because Remus is a good lay and Sirius can get lonely when he’s not being adored. This isn’t some sorta fucking Taylor Swift love song or some shit. This is just fucking and that’s it.

It doesn’t mean anything else. Not really, not ever.

“You never talk about her,” Sirius starts, tentative as they walk down the stairs. 

“It’s not like me and you do much talking,” Remus retorts, more than a bit indifferent. And Sirius strangely feels like he’s just been put in his place.

“Erm, right.”

“Have a good trip Sirius.”

“No kiss goodbye?” Sirius asks, one corner of his mouth curved upwards, and his heart feeling like it’s been pumped with helium when Remus— with a roll of his eyes that can only be described as fond— leans forwards for a dry peck before waving farewell.

Sirius stays rooted to the spot long after Remus has left, and oh fuck. James might be right.

Sirius hates it when James is right.

.-

It’s the third day into their trip, and James is downstairs fucking the lifeguard— Nadia— while on her break, and Sirius has been propositioned half a dozen times already , but he’s still back in his hotel room again, alone for the night, with his finger hovering over Remus’s name and riddled with doubt whether it would be a good idea to call him or not.

Blessedly, the choice seems to have been taken out his hands when Remus ends up snapping him a photograph of fast food and his and Evans’s smiling faces in the frame, the black bar reading an incredibly sarcastic “Happy holidays.”

Sirius doesn’t bother to think before pressing down and waiting to hear the tone, feeling such crippling relief when Remus actually picks up.

“Lily says to tell you fuck off from her.”

“Evans is a class act, I see why James wants it in her panties so badly.”

Remus’s familiar snort of laughter is wry and it makes Sirius’s insides buzz with a maddening sort of want. “How’s Turkey?”

“Beautiful people and delicious food.”

“What more could you want?”

“Precisely gorgeous.”

It’s like Sirius can see it when Remus’s face gets heated and he begins to worry on his bottom lip, like how he does when he’s particularly malleable and excepts Sirius’s pet names for what they are, complements he means with all he has. 

“I saw your younger brother when Lils and I went to pick up the pie from the bakers.”

Sirius furrows his brows, absolutely befuddled.“Are you sure that was Regulus? My family pays folks to do tasks like that.”

Remus from two months ago would’ve told him off, but this Remus— the one that’s just as hard to please, but knows Sirius in uncomfortably intimate ways— only chuckles. “Yeah I was kinda gobsmacked, but he came up to us, asked if we knew how you were doing with the Potters.”

“Well, I guess we’re not as slick as we’d like to think,” Sirius intones, wonders if Regulus has told their parents that Sirius would be just as likely to be spending his nights with a guy over one of the airhead debutantes in their circle.

“No, I suppose not,” Remus laughs lightly. “You concerned if he’ll tell your folks?”

Sirius starts, “How did you—“

“You’re not that hard to parse out Sirius, hate to break it to you.”

That irritates him for a reason Sirius couldn’t fathom if someone had forced him. “Well you worried that the Professor will find out you’re fucking a lithe, pretty boy such as myself?” He asks with a good amount of derision.

“Oh grow up Black,” Remus scoffs, and Sirius winces back. Hates how he’s reverted back to calling him by his surname, much prefers the soft lilt to Remus’s lovely cadence when he’s speaking Sirius’s first name, makes him feel remarkable in ways he can’t even describe. “Caradoc and I know full and well that we’re both screwing other people. He’s got a wife for fuck’s sake.”

Sirius’s frown deepens and he tries not to absolutely despise the way Remus’s voice goes so soft when he says Caradoc, “That’s sorta fucked if you ask me Lupin. I mean isn’t that kina pathetic on your end, thirsting over a man like double your age and fully committed to someone else.”

“It’s not like I really care, like I want that sorta relationship.” Sirius doesn’t know it quite yet, but that will become one of the most heartbreakingly honest things Remus will ever tell him.

“Oh.”

There’s silence for a beat and Sirius feels like he’s drowning at sea.

“Lily’s opening up some Chardonnay, i’ll talk to you when you get back.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Sirius doesn’t have the chance to say goodbye before Remus clicks off the line and it’s the last time on the trip Remus answers his calls, and the final night Sirius spends alone until they come back home to New York.

.-

They don’t talk about their conversation again, it becomes a specter within their relationship— if they can even call it that. Anytime Sirius even alludes to it, Remus either kisses him so hard that it makes him go positively delirious, or makes up an abrupt excuse to leave.

There’s a distant air about Remus now, one that’s as cold and frigid as the winter nights, and Sirius takes out the frustration on buying anything and everything that he wants, and breaking his fist against the cheek of a prick who made the mistake to look at him the wrong way right after he spotted Caradoc and the woman who must be his wife strolling down fifth avenue. 

“Why the fuck would Remus want that piece of shit when I’m right here?”

“Dunno, maybe he likes smart guys?” James offers one night at a Prewett party, high off a concoction of vodka and adderall and a couple pills that Gideon promised was perfect for a good time.

“I’m fucking smart!”

“Nah, you’re business smart. Lupin is like a chick, he wants poetry and shit.”

Sirius pouts moodily, “I can do that flowery shit.”

With shaking hands, James just pats his head consolingly, “Stop thinking bout it and get high with me, yeah?”

Sirius rolls his eyes but complies, headed towards Avery who always has the best coke on him. But it doesn’t really help, Sirius keeps on thinking about Remus, even when he doesn’t want to be.

Sirius thinks of Remus the night of New Year’s Eve when Emmeline Vance corners him in the backroom of the club he had laid claim on for the Holiday, wondering if he’s with the professor while Emmeline shouts out his name when she orgasms. He’s the person Sirius thinks of two weeks after that when Gilderoy Lockhart is sucking him off between the aisle of shelves of their school’s library and he thinks he can barely make out the mop of Remus’s curls off in the distance. He’s the person he’s thinking of while in English class and forced to listen to Dearborn passionately describe the trials and tribulations of Romeo and Juliet while Remus is dutifully taking notes in the front row, attentive and wide eyed. It’s honestly fucking obscene and Sirius can’t believe he’s the only one seeing this shit.

Dearborn asks Remus to stay after class to discuss his latest essay, and Sirius swears he sees red, makes sure to text him to come over to Sirius’s place tonight for a surprise. 

He buys him a shiny Rolex and clamps it around his wrist that night when he’s inspecting Remus’s wrists after letting them loose from the rope they had been using.

“Shiny,” Remus notes a bit blankly.

“A diamond for my diamond,” Sirius had smirked cockily, kissing the tips of his fingers dotingly and laughing at how Remus rolls his eyes at him. 

“I bet that’s what you say to all your conquests.”

“Only the pretty ones.”

Sirius feels his chest contract, something lovely blossoming inside when that makes it so Remus wrinkles his nose in buoyant, unabashed laughter, leaning forwards to kiss him nice and thorough.

.-

The next day Sirius preens pridefully when Caradoc’s eyes catch on the Rolex and flickers over to Sirius. Its positively glorious when he nods to the unspoken question and Caradoc has to bite down the grimace that began to flash across his face.

.-

Valentine’s day lands on a Saturday this year, so it makes complete sense to Sirius to ask Remus to fly down to the Bahamas with him for three days of debauchery under the sun.

“THat’s extreme,” Remus says in that reserved way of his, never looking above from the passage he’s revising for the exam he’s got next period.

“It’ll be fun,” Sirius counters.

“You can just fuck me here,” Remus points out.

“Yeah, but then I won’t get to watch you sunbathing bare ass naked.” 

Remus laughs, and Sirius knows that he’s won.

It’s a weekend spent in alternating states of fucking, and eating, and swimming in the ever so blue water. And Sirius loves it so much, loves getting to treat Remus— this beautiful angel that somehow, for some god forsaken reason has entangled his life with Sirius’s own. And it’s so splendid that it hurts.

They’re sitting in Sirius’s private jet now, Remus’s head resting on Sirius’s shoulder, and looking like he might just pass out at any moment.

“Hope the Professor isn’t to pissy that I got you for Valentine’s day,” Sirius says after taking the whiskey from the flight attendant, putting Remus’s mojito to the side incase he wakes up sooner rather than later.

“Hmm? Nah, I broke it off,” Remus mumbles, squirms around so that he’s more comfortable in the seat, but for his part, Sirius’s heart completely stops and his breath catches— pure elation beginning to slink through his insides. 

“Is that right?”

“Mmhmm,” Remus replies before completely knocking out, leaving behind a thousand questions twirling around in the open space between them.

“Fuck.”

.-

Sirius’s paired with Lily for a chemistry lab that’s worth half their final grade.

Neither of them are at all happy with it, but they’re both too neurotic about their placements in the top three percent of the class that they deal, coming to the unspoken consensus that they just won’t make any small talk.

“Put three drops of the yellow vile Black,” Lily all but hisses. “And be precise for fuck’s sake.” Sirius replies by tossing her a not so polite gesture but does as told. “God, I don’t know why Remus lets you defile him.”

Sirius smirks like the cat who’s caught the canary, loves whenever he thinks about all the naughty ways he’s had Remus. “Sorry Evans, you’re not my type, so I can’t show you just how good I do it.”

Her face scrunches up indelicately, and Sirius truly thinks that she might kill him. “I would rather eat my left foot than spend a night with you.”

“That’s a bit kinky Evans, I don’t know if James is up to that level of play.”

“Will you shut your fucking mouth.”

“Admit you think James is cute.”

“So what if he is!” Lily barks now, fists clenched against her skirt and glower set on her objectively pretty face.

“Then why don’t you put the poor bastard out his misery and go out with him.”

“What the fuck!”

“You think he’s cute,” Sirius points out, as if she could’ve forgotten in the five seconds that have past.

“God Black, some of us have actual standards you know! We don’t just indiscriminately fuck any person we’re attracted towards.”

“Prude.”

“Inbred bastard!”

“For the record I haven’t fucked anyone besides Remus since like mid January.” 

Lily suddenly deflates, like her hackles just left her. “Wait, what?”

Sirius shuffles in his seat, hasn’t admitted that out loud to anyone yet, not even Remus. “Yeah, so , what’s it to you.”

It’s the fact that Lily looks so put out, and borderline concerned for him that really freaks Sirius out. “Have you told Remus this?”

Sirius doesn’t know why he’s being honest with her, but there’s a shift in the air between them that’s too poignant not to respond to, so he only shakes his head, helpless.

“Alright, well maybe don’t. Just don’t tell him that, okay?”

Sirius gets suddenly angry again, fury pulsing through his veins. “Why the fuck not.”

Lily’s lips pinch and she only peers up at him with something he’s never seen glittering in her eyes— something like sympathy. “’S just not a good idea Black. If you like him, just don’t.”

“What? You jealous he won’t give you all his attention anymore once he gets a boyfriend?” Sirius asks hotly, his hand fisted around his pen so hard that his knuckles go white.”You some sorta fag hag or something.”

The familiar coldness comes over Lily’s face once more, and it brings Sirius some level of comfort. She gathers her books and stands up breezily, tells Sirius to finish up and storms off in an air of strawberry perfume and frustration.

.-

It’s been a week since Sirius and Lily had chatted, and Sirius is equal parts convinced that she was trolling him and terrified that there’s something to Remus he doesn’t know. But it’s ben so good between them for the last couple months, so easy and light hearted and fun. Sirius doesn’t want this to end because of some metaling friends damn it. So he pushes it to the back of his mind, leaves it there to rot and fade away. 

That is until it’s March tenth and Sirius hasn’t seen Remus or Lily for half the day, and Remus hasn’t been answering his texts since last night and there’s just something fucked up going on. He just knows it in his core.

He stops Dorcas Meadows in the hall after fourth period, asks if she’s heard from Remus.

She shrugs, not worried. “’S his birthday right? So I’m sure he and Lily just got brunch and played some hooky.”

“Oh— Yeah.” Sirius replies, feeling it when his heart sinks down to his toes and six feet under ground. Remus hadn’t told him that it’s his birthday, why the fuck would he keep that from him? 

It’s a spur of the moment decision when he texts Kreacher— the family butler— to drop off an expensive gift from Cartier in his suite, and walks into the main office with a grin that makes the moony eyed secretary blush violently and stammer out the Lupin address after Sirius had asked so kindly.

Sirius’s stepping through the glass doors to the penthouse on the corner of 95th street, surprised when he finds Lily sitting in front of the front desk, frizzy haired and red eyed, and it’s the first time he ever sees her not perfectly pristine. It’s unnerving and terrifying and it makes it so Sirius’s stomach swoops in a painful sort of way.

“What happened.” He asks in a voice caught between a shout and sob, and when Lily finally looks up she just shakes her head, slight but enough for Sirius to begin regulating his breathing again.

“He’s fine.”

“What’s going on Evans.” Sirius snarls, glaring down at how her gaze goes askance and she purses her lips. “You owe me! You can’t just keep this secret! There’s something wrong and it has to do with Remus! I need to know, I love him!” Sirius’s voice catches— had never said that out loud but it felt so right that he doesn’t even care. “I love him and you know something he’s keeping from me.”

“It’s not my place,” Lily starts, is cut off when Sirius yells at her to cut the crap.

“Remus is a stubborn fuck, you know he won’t tell me unless I know part of the story already!”

Resigned looking, Lily only exhales. “It’s his mom.”

“His mom? You mean Hope?”

“Yeah— She had one of her episodes this morning.”

“Episodes?” Sirius repeats, feels like an idiot who doesn’t understand a thing about the boy he knows in his soul that he loves. 

“A long story,” Lily says, glancing over his shoulder and looking a bit relieved, so Sirius fully expects to see Remus standing there— Still feels the breath punch out of him every time he remembers how beautiful he is with the late afternoon sunlight caressing his features so softly and unspooling in his golden hair like a halo.

“It’s all alright, she agreed to go in for the three days.” Remus says to Lily, and Sirius feels so fucking lost. He hates it.

“I’ll come with you to pick her up,” Lily tells him, hugging Remus close in such an achingly familiar way that it makes a pang hit against his chest. Remus plunges his face in her main of red hair and breathes in deep, and Sirius feels a sudden, burning need to ask her how is it she got him to trust her, and how Sirius could do the same.

“I’ll come too,” he says a bit too brashly and he flinches at his own idiocy. “I mean, I don’t exactly know what you guys are talking about, but you can count on me Remus.”

They give him twin nods with the same one eyed squint and it’s frankly disturbing how they’re that attuned to one another, wonders if this is how other folks feel when they meet Sirius and James for the first time.

“I’ve got that Calculus test last period.” Lily says quietly to Remus, green eyes full of remorse. 

“’S fine, go on. I think me and Sirius should talk anyhow.” Remus tells her, looking over her shoulder and straight through Sirius.

“Alright, text me when you’re done, and I’ll come and sleep over.” She instructs with a tone brooking no arguments, pecks Remus on the cheek and gives Sirius a deadly glare that plainly says, you screw this up I screw up your life. And Sirius hates that he doesn’t doubt the validity of the threat.

.-

Perhaps a bit naively, Sirius had really thunk Remus meant it when he said that they should talk. But what actually happens is that the moment the elevator slides open, Remus is pushing Sirius to the upstairs. To a bed that’s probably Remus’s in a room that would probably give away more of his secrets than Remus himself ever would, but Sirius doesn’t have time to dwell on it or appreciate the scenery.

The second they collapse onto the bed, Remus has got his mouth pressed to Sirius’s own and their kisses are frantic and deep and rushed and it feels like Sirius is at the top of a cliff and about to jump.

“Remus— Are—“

“Just don’t,” Remus says, almost pleading as he sits up and pulls off his shirt. “Just fuck me, and let’s not talk about it.”

Sirius can hear Evans reprimanding him, but if this is what Remus wants— if this is what Sirius can do to help, well he’s not going to just refuse him. Could never refuse him anything.

“C’mere gorgeous.”

The line of tension that’s been threaded through Remus’s shoulders this entire time has finally let loos and he practically falls into Sirius’s embrace, pliant and tender beneath him as Sirius kisses him with all the earnestness in the world, and when he slips in the first lube cloaked finger inside of him, Remus lets out such a needy whimper that it makes Sirius want to sob.

“Need you.” Remus says with a kiss pressed against Sirius’s neck, back arching up when Sirius lines up against his hole and thrusts forwards for the first time. And it’s kind of graceless and kind of frantic and maybe a little too hard at parts, but it’s what Remus wants, and Sirius would give him the world if he only asked, tells him as much while he lifts one of Remus’s legs over his shoulder and fucks into him that bit deeper.

Remus turns his head— doesn’t reply— but Sirius doesn’t care, wants it spoken out in the space between them, wants him to know.

“I love you Remus.”

When they’re finished and cleaned up, Sirius tucks Remus into the crook of his neck and shoulder, kisses the crown of his head before asking what happened.

“Can you stay?” Is all Remus says in response, and Sirius says of course so quickly that it comes out a mess of continents, but it’s obvious clear enough because Remus only snuggles closer and shuts his eyes and they fall asleep between one breath and the next.

.-

When Sirius wakes up, it’s late enough that the moon’s out, and Remus is sitting like an apparition on the ledge of the window, gazing at Sirius with such softness in his eyes that it breaks Sirius’s heart.

“My mom’s got difficulties.” is the first thing Remus tells him when Sirius sits up. And he knows it that he can’t screw this up, tries thinking carefully of a response.

“Don’t we all.”

“Not like her’s.” Remus retorts, smiling like a setting sun. “’S why my dad skived off to Europe. Couldn’t handle her mood swings— called her crazy and said that I’m probably the same.”

Sirius feels an instant and searing hatred for Lyall Lupin, but doesn’t think it’s apt to say as much right now, so he settles for a simple, “Fuck him.”

“He’s probably right that I’ve got the same condition— bipolar disorder I mean.”

“That doesn’t mean your fucking crazy,” Sirius contends haughtily, sliding out of bed to pad over to Remus, clamping a hand against his cheek gingerly and looking straight into his eyes. “It just means you’re a person, with shit you have to deal with like the rest of us.”

Remus gives him a weak smile, eyes straying back to the skyline outdoors and the way the moonlight drenches over the city. And Sirius has never before felt this needy, clawing sensation against his chest, like he would do anything just to make Remus understand, to show him how much he means it with every fiber of his being.

Tossing all caution to the wind, and forgetting the words Lily had warned, Sirius tells him the one thing he knows for sure. 

“I love you Remus.” And it’s like he’s just sent an electrical shock through him if the way Remus leaps up and stares slack jawed at him is anything to go by.

“No, Sirius.”

“No?”

“You don’t love me.”

“Oy, I think I know what the fuck I’m saying when I say that I love you Lupin.”

“You don’t,” Remus argues, beginning to quiver now, and golden head tipped imperiously. “You’re just confused.”

“I love you Remus,” Sirius repeats in a much slower, much harder inflection.

“What does that even mean,” he asks in such a broken down, rasp of a voice that it cracks Sirius’s heart into a thousand, splintering pieces even hearing it. So far away from the sunlit splendor Sirius has always looked at him wrapped within. "you love me?”

Sirius parts his lips and nothing comes out, he has to clear his voice and clench his fists to stop the shaking. “Course I do.”

“But what the fuck does that mean!” Remus asks again with a threadbare sort of cadence, more emphatic, more pleading, more imploring, like someone asking for respite from a Prophet, as if Remus himself— ingenuous and compassionate and beautiful Remus— hasn’t been Sirius’s guiding light all this time.. And Sirius only looks at him, really looks— at this echo of the gods favorite vanities— and he knows to his core that he’d move heaven and earth if it would only make him smile.

“Rem—“

“What do you mean Sirius! Tell me!”

There’s stardust spilling in Remus’s hair, and Sirius’s tugging on the ends of his own so harshly that it makes him wince and there’s a rabid, squirming sensation that’s slinking through Sirius’s very bones, against his very skin— a sensation that makes him want to reach over the three feet separating them and through the five months of shared history that built them together. Five months of caressing hands and devouring lips and feeling at peace for the first time in their miserable lives. Makes him want to knot their limbs together and kiss him like the world was suspended just for the pair of them again, to taste the butterscotch sweetness and half formed secrets and nicotine stained lips Sirius has always handled with the upmost reverence.

But he can’t.

It feels like they’re at an impasse, like Remus can’t understand and Sirius can’t explain and they’re left to glide past each other like ships in the night. A possibility that scares Sirius so thoroughly that it’s like his ribcage begins to rattle, threatening to split open with all the pent up emotions he’s never been shown how to articulate.

“I love you Remus.”

“Why. How! How do you even know!” Remus practically demands, and it’s the first time Sirius looks at him and can’t recognize the boy he’s always known. Sirius looks at Remus— at the boy he loves more than he ever thought possible— and he thinks that he looks so damn desperate. Desperate to understand, desperate to feel something, desperate in ways Sirius can’t even identify, and that’s what scares him the fucking most. NO matter how much they joke and kid that Sirius— the scion of the ancient and most noble house of Black— was an enigma, that’s just not true, not in Remus’s case. Remus has always known the gears and slings that operated in Sirius’s bones, the staples that sing in his soul. He knows about his familial obligations, about his responsibility towards Regulus and brotherhood with James. He knows that Sirius has only ever said I love you in that particular way to one person and meant it, knows that it was to Remus himself.

Remus knows all the intimate bits and sharp edges that piece Sirius together, but for the first time he wonders if it was ever going to be an even trade, or if Remus’s uncanny ability to keep his cards to his chest without anyone even taking note would always lead to this moment, with a chasm stretched out between them and Sirius not having any damn idea how to even begin to breach it.

“Look, this isn’t easy for me, coming from the family I do,” Sirius admits, sounding gruff to his own ears, but is encouraged to continue when delinks their pinkies together and Remus doesn’t move away. “But I know that I love you, and I know that you feel something too.”

“But how,” Remus asks again, persistent as ever.

“I dunno,” Sirius admits with a helpless shrug of the shoulder. “But all that matters is that I love you Remus, and the rest of it can fuck off to hell for all I care.”

Another impossibly long beat of silence pulses between them, but eventually Remus only nods— once and quick before he presses their lips together and slowly leads Sirius back to bed.

It’s not an answer, and it’s not exactly a promise either, but It’s Remus telling Sirius that he wants to understand, wants to try to tend this tentative little flame between them, and that’s more than enough for him. That’s everything.

Remus Lupin is everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you SO SO much for reading loves, IDK what sorta crack i was smoking while writing this but here we are. RIP
> 
> It would mean the galaxy and stars if you left a comment letting me know what you thought!!! <3 <3
> 
> come chat with me on [Tumblr](http://Lennyx.tumblr.com)


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